So I’m increasing my methotrexate. Flippers crossed that all will go well, I won’t get any nasty side effects (except maybe appetite loss, which would actually be a great benefit!) and it’ll keep my disease in control for at least another five years … but what if it doesn’t?

Well I asked my consultant this at my last appointment. He’d said, ‘I’m happy to increase your methotrexate to 17.5 and then to 20 but after that we’ll have to start considering other things if that isn’t doing the trick’.

So I asked him point blank what other things? ‘Oh’ he said airily, ‘there are lots of other things available.’ Well it’s now or never I thought and said what’s been on my mind for a while: ‘I know about biologics, but I won’t qualify for them on the NHS, will I?’ He looked a bit startled and then had to admit that no, I didn’t stand a chance. With my fabulous blood results that never show anything wrong, I’ve got no chance of being offered them at all at the moment.

So … where would I go if the methotrexate doesn’t work or causes problems? Well, I can add sulfasalazine to the mix and see if that does any good. ‘Some people are on three DMARDs’ said the consultant, but even he didn’t sound really convinced about it.

So what it boils down to is that with the usual NHS foresight, if the methotrexate increase doesn’t work and then the sulfasalazine doesn’t work, I would have to wait until I was in a really bad way, unable to work, probably unable to walk (given that feet and knee are the worst bits of me) before they’d even deign to consider me for other treatments. As usual, let’s not make the effort to keep people OK and working – let’s wait until they’re falling apart before helping, even though surely doing it that backwards way doubtless ends up costing ‘the system’ more in the end!

Well, back to crossing those flippers and hoping it never comes to that!

Well I had my annual appointment today with the consultant. He was running nearly two hours late, but I couldn’t complain; if I need that sort of time one day, I’ll want him to spend it on me, so I can’t complain when someone else needs his time and he gives it to them.

Having said that, I did get chatting to another patient over the tea and biccies they bring when they’re running outrageously late, and we ended up talking about Mr Consultant. ‘Is it just me,’ says I, ‘or does he always seem really bored?’

‘Oh my, yes,’ my new friend replied, ‘and he always talks at the notes or the dictaphone, not at you.’

We carried on in this vein for a while, and then talked of other things. It made the time go so much faster having someone to chat to, and luckily for me she was next in line after me, so I could chat to her right up until I was called in.

So I went in expecting a bored and fed up Mr Consultant to glance and me and start chatting to his dictaphone, but no such thing. Just like the experience I had with the nurse six months ago, it was as though he’d had a personality transplant. He was charm itself. We talked through my issues, and instead of saying ‘Well, the bloods are fine, go away and stop bothering me’* he listened carefully as I told him about the various flares in the last six months, examined me, and agreed that if I had had flares and needed steroids, clearly my disease was not fully controlled.

The upshot of it is that my methotrexate dose is increasing to 17.5 mg and we’ll see how we go from there.

I was able to tell my buddy on the way out that she needn’t worry, Mr Consultant was in a good mood today; I just hope she found the same!

You know, when I was first diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis six years ago, when I was 39, comments like that used to really annoy me. I lost count of the number of people who said things like ‘Oh, aren’t you a bit young for that? My granny has that. She’s lost some weight lately though and feels so much better.’

‘Why do people have to make dumb comments like that?’ I’d wonder. So I’d try educating them – I’d patiently explain that what I had was rheumatoid arthritis, an autoimmune disease where my body has decided it’s a neat idea to attack its own joints, whereas what their granny had was probably osteoarthritis.

My favourite response to that was ‘Oh no – she had a big bowl of cereal every day and had really strong bones.’ So I then had to explain that osteoarthritis was ‘wear and tear’ arthritis, and what they were thinking of with the milk was osteoporosis, which is a reduction in bone density that can lead to fractures amongst other things, and which can (maybe … sometimes) be avoided by a good calcium intake.

Usually, with a few deep breaths and counts to ten, I would manage an explanation that convinced them that granny and I didn’t have the same thing – but it did used to drive me nuts.

Now, seven years on, I’m 45, overweight, look 50 on a bad day, and nobody says ‘Aren’t you too young for that?’ any more.

World Autoimmune Arthritis Day is an annual 47-hour event where nonprofits, advocates, and experts from around the world unite in order to provide educational and awareness information to patients, their supporters, and the general public.

If you ‘attended’ in 2012, which was a great event, this one should be even bigger and better, with Nonprofit Booths, Vendors, a Raffle and a special feature: A Day in the Life with Autoimmune Arthritis (an Apple/Android app and Exhibit Booth).

It starts at 11am British Summer time or 6am ET/USA on May 19th and ends at 10am British Summer Time or 5 am ET/USA May 21st, 2013. It is an interactive, LIVE, Virtual Convention that you can attend for FREE…just find an internet connection and join the rest of the world for 47 hours of education and fun!

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A bit about me

My name is not Pollyanna and I'm not a penguin. If you'd not worked out the last bit you should probably stop reading this and seek out a psychologist.

This is a blog about me and rheumatoid arthritis - sounds like fun, huh? Well I'm hoping it'll be a bit more fun than it sounds - hence the Pollyanna part. I'm going to try to stay positive about it and play 'Pollyanna's glad game' - finding reasons to be cheerful basically.

If you really want to know more see the 'About me' page.

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